Dominique Straus Kahn can’t keep it in his pants

3.28.2012 1 Comment

Having escaped from New York with his person intact, although a civil trial remains a real possibility, our hero returned to France only to soon find himself implicated in and briefly imprisoned because of the Carlton Affair:

Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s lawyer said it was wrong for his client to be prosecuted for “simple libertine activity” after he was charged with helping to run a prostitution ring last night.

The former head of the International Monetary Fund – who quit his post last year over charges, later dropped, alleging he sexually assaulted a hotel maid in New York – denies a charge of “aggravated procurement in an organised gang”.

Mr Strauss-Kahn was released on a €100,000 (£83,000) bail last night. He is understood to have admitted that he attended orgies in what has been dubbed the “Carlton Affair”, named after the hotel in which the sex parties took place. But Mr Strauss-Kahn maintains that he was unaware prostitutes were involved.

The case also revolves around suspicions that some of his business associates were among those running the ring and were misusing corporate funds while doing so.

A (fictional) Sex Slave

Who, one wonders, made this berserk and reality-challenged man the director of the IMF?

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Quote of the day

7.28.2011 Leave a comment

Pam Marten’s has this to say about one insolent Frenchman:

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and aspirant to the Élysée Palace, has left a trail of DNA from Davos to Paris to Gotham (and that’s just what he’s acknowledged). But that’s

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director, Int...

DSK

not the only mess he’s left others to clean up.

Putting aside the criminal charges and allegation of attempted rape on two continents for a moment, Strauss-Kahn, or DSK as his compatriots like to call him, has singlehandedly humiliated the International Monetary Fund, the luxury Sofitel Hotel, his current wife (Anne Sinclair), his daughter (Camille), his second wife (Brigitte Guillemette), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (where he is alleged to have had sex between the file cabinets), the luxury Porsche auto brand (prior to his arrest in New York, the French Socialist Party member was tooling around Paris in a Porsche Panamera which is priced in the range of $150,000 and whose ownership was tied to a French media/armaments conglomerate, Lagardère), his fellow Caviar Socialists, the lovable entertainer Zippy the Chimp (accuser Tristane Banon called DSK a “rutting chimpanzee”). He’s accomplished for the image of powerful French politicians what Guantanamo accomplished for the image of U.S. justice: a law free zone.

Given this trail of smoldering ash, one might expect a little humility from DSK and his take-no-prisoners lawyers and advance men. But no. The whole pack is suing left and right — that’s literally the political left and the political right.

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He’s just ‘girl crazy’

7.4.2011 1 Comment

Having barely survived his New York difficulties, Dominique Strauss-Kahn now wants to mount a legal counterattack against a French woman, Tristane Banon, who accused him of rape in 2007 and who now plans to make a complaint for rape against the disgraced former head of the International Monetary Fund: Agent France Presse reportsthat:

He just can't help it

Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn plans to sue for slander a French woman who said she will file an attempted rape complaint against him, his lawyers said in a statement Monday.

Earlier French journalist and writer Tristane Banon, 32, who once branded Strauss-Kahn a “rutting chimpanzee”, indicated she would lodge “a complaint for attempted rape” against him, her lawyer David Koubbi told the news magazine L’Express on its website.

Koubbi added he would likely send the complaint to French prosecutors on Tuesday.

But Strauss-Kahn, who resigned from his post at the IMF after being charged with sexual assault in New York, fired back at his French accuser.

His lawyers Henri Leclerc and Frederique Baulieu told AFP in a statement that Strauss-Kahn had taken note of Banon’s intentions, but dismissed her charges as “imaginary.”

They said they “were in the process of compiling a libel complaint against her.”

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Dominique Strauss-Kahn was set free

7.2.2011 1 Comment

In the New York Times‘ recounting of the event:

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, who is accused of sexually assaulting a hotel housekeeper, was released from house arrest on Friday as the case against him moved closer to dismissal after prosecutors told a Manhattan judge that the credibility of his accuser was in serious question.

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A reprieve awaits Dominique Strauss-Kahn?

7.1.2011 Leave a comment

Events appear to be turning towards that conclusion. The New York Times now reports that:

The sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn is on the verge of collapse as investigators have uncovered major holes in the credibility of the housekeeper who charged that he attacked her in his Manhattan hotel suite in May, according to two well-placed law enforcement officials.

Although forensic tests found unambiguous evidence of a sexual encounter between Mr. Strauss-Kahn, a French politician, and the woman, prosecutors now do not believe much of what the accuser has told them about the circumstances or about herself.

Since her initial allegation on May 14, the accuser has repeatedly lied, one of the law enforcement officials said.

Senior prosecutors met with lawyers for Mr. Strauss-Kahn on Thursday and provided details about their findings, and the parties are discussing whether to dismiss the felony charges. Among the discoveries, one of the officials said, are issues involving the asylum application of the 32-year-old housekeeper, who is Guinean, and possible links to people involved in criminal activities, including drug dealing and money laundering.

It is a miserable yet possible fact that Strauss-Kahn did criminally assault this woman. But that possible fact will not matter much even if it were not merely possible but actual. An assault would not matter if the victim of the assault will never provide credible testimony that can overcome the weakness of the forensic evidence. Her initial credibility contrasted strongly with the wretched and chronic behavior of the accused, a man known for his sexual appetite and his predation. Today, both stand diminished.

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The IMF will receive a woman’s touch…

6.28.2011 Leave a comment

Christine Lagarde, currently the Minister for Economic Affairs, Finance and Industry in President Nicolas Sarkozy‘s center-right government, will soon become the first women to lead the International Monetary Fund. Her statement on her appointment:

“The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund has just selected me to succeed Dominique Strauss-Kahn as Managing Director for a five-year term, starting on July 5. I am deeply honored by the trust placed in me by the Executive Board. I would like to thank the Fund’s global membership warmly for the broad-based support I have received. I would also like to express my respect and esteem for my colleague and friend, Agustín Carstens.

“The IMF has served its 187 member countries well during the global economic and financial crisis, transforming itself in many positive ways. I will make it my overriding goal that our institution continues to serve its entire membership with the same focus and the same spirit. As I have had the opportunity to say to the IMF Board during the selection process, the IMF must be relevant, responsive, effective, and legitimate, to achieve stronger and sustainable growth, macroeconomic stability, and a better future for all.”

As the person who has received the honor of replacing Dominique Strauss-Khan, Ms. Largarde has an opportunity to replenish the aura of an institution revered by everyone.

Cristine Legarde walks the red carpet

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Dominique Strauss-Kahn claimed to have a ‘get out of jail free’ card

6.17.2011 Leave a comment

The Associated Press reports that:

Dominique Strauss-Kahn declared he had diplomatic immunity and complained that his handcuffs were too tight after he was taken into custody on allegations he tried to rape a Manhattan hotel maid, court documents filed Thursday show.

Pass Go and Collect Millions of Euros

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The politics of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s criminal career

6.10.2011 Leave a comment

Might we consider Dominique Strauss-Kahn‘s recent troubles to be little more than a sex scandal? If we did, Strauss-Kahn would just be a cad and schmuck, like Anthony Weiner. Has he not been made ridiculous by his own hand? Are his troubles just another instance in which a powerful man is found to be undeserving of the highest honors and, perhaps, even brute sympathy? Is this scandal his alone? Or, is there more to the scandal than one man’s perverse desires and the stigma he must now wear?

I would say that Strauss-Kahn’s predicament amounts to something more than a sex scandal. Marie Bénilde, writing for Le Monde Diplomatique, succinctly gives the reasons for considering them to be so:

A positive aspect to the furore [sic] after the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn on charges including attempted rape was the revelation of the workings of the French media. These include the extreme personalization of politics (leader writers deplore this while pursuing their own causes); the continuity between communications advisers and journalists when a “client” fits mainstream media ideology; and the close ties, always condemned but never severed, between the press and government. The DSK affair also revealed the class reflexes that move editorial writers, on the top rungs of the social ladder, when the powerful fall. The misfortunes of the weak are too banal to be news.

Some men are petty tyrants. Their crimes are matters to be handled by the police and the courts. Other men are grand tyrants. Their crimes often become political matters because their power and influence shields their actions from critical scrutiny and legal accountability. Strauss-Kahn’s troubles belong to the second category. He was a member of the French elite, a leader of the International Monetary Fund and, it seems, an abuser of women for much of his life. His sexual misadventures were not the private affairs of two or more consenting adults. They were instances in which he abused his power. And the members of his class, political party and others closely related to his milieu indirectly sponsored his criminal by providing political and social coverage for him.

Revolutions were made over lesser slights.

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Sherry Wolf sets her sights on Dominique Strauss-Kahn

5.18.2011 2 Comments

After ridiculing Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the French Socialist Party, the French media and the International Monetary Fund, Sherry Wolf concluded her article by pointing out that:

We rarely, if ever, see such a powerful man fall, and never for the rape of a Black immigrant woman. I can only assume that he’s pissed off people much higher up who decided to cut the cord.

In coming weeks we’ll see the institutions he represents and his former hangers-on scurry about to cover their asses, but for now we can take a bit of pleasure in the political, social and personal collapse of such a man. Let’s use his fall to shine a light on the organizations that have protected him all these years.

Au revoir, Monsieur Pig! FSP and IMF, j’accuse!

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Ben Stein defends a ‘socialist’

5.18.2011 Leave a comment

Ben Stein recently took up the cause of Dominique Strauss-Khan. He defended the embattled politician by blaming the victim who made the allegations against Strauss-Kahn; by class baiting the New York Police Department, the New York District Attorney’s Office, the media that has covered the scandal and the have-nots who are reading about it; and by offering obscurantist arguments regarding Strauss-Kahn’s propensity to commit this crime. Stein also pleads for special treatment for Strauss-Kahn because the former IMF Chief is rich, famous, powerful and important enough that he need not spend time at Rikers Island and should not be subject to a perp walk. In Stein’s world, these indignities ought to be applied only to criminals.

Stein claims: “…this is a case about the hatred of the have-nots for the haves, and that’s what it’s all about.” Actually, the Strauss-Kahn case originated in the serious allegations made by a hotel employee against a specific man, Dominique Strauss-Khan, a man who already had gained a reputation as a serial harasser of women. His class is irrelevant just as her class is irrelevant.

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